


Robot love-child

by rabbitinthewoods



Series: Post pre-apocalyptic Sokivia [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Post-Battle of Sokovia, Trans Character, Trans Tony Stark, Vision is a tiny tiny child, fun family shennanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 12:36:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7171454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabbitinthewoods/pseuds/rabbitinthewoods
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Point was, Pepper had come. He’d gotten the food. The living room wasn’t entirely the hellscape it had been only a day ago. A movie had been picked out – nothing with robots, nothing with AI’s or any kind of violence – and set aside. And then Tony had walked in with...the new guy.</p><p>And he must have a name, right? Except nobody’s told Rhodey what the hell it is, it’s probably Rob Stark or something stupid. Also, purple?</p><p>Why the hell is your sense of taste so gaudy, Tony?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Robot love-child

**Author's Note:**

> I needed more tiny child! Vision and enthusiastic dad! Tony, so here we are.

Rhodey had been hoping, perhaps naively, for a quiet post-flying-city-showdown evening in with two of his favourite people. He’d even managed, and he was proud of this, to order Thai food and get it all set up in one of the less-damaged areas of Tony’s penthouse living room. Given that most of the room was shot to hell and scattered with robot pieces and debris, that hadn’t been as easy as it usually was. Hence the pride. Getting Pepper to come had been a marvel of careful planning and the test-run of his new War Machine story; he didn’t think Pepper really appreciated it, but he was telling himself that it was probably that she was too close to the story’s participants rather than there being anything actually wrong with his presentation of it. It certainly wasn’t that the entire thing was a bit of a pre-apocalypse nightmare. Yeah, definitely too close. Sure.

Jesus, he wasn’t even convincing himself.

But, point was, she’d come. He’d gotten the food. The living room wasn’t entirely the hellscape it had been only a day ago. A movie had been picked out – nothing with robots, nothing with AI’s or any kind of violence – and set aside. And then Tony had walked in with...the new guy. They’d sat down. Tony had given the food a cursory glance, nodded at Rhodey’s film choice – Princess and the Frog, Rhodey had taste, ok – and pecked Pepper on the cheek. Then Tony was smiling.

Tony’s smile was the smile Rhodey had learned to recognise as his _I’m about to show you the best thing I’ve seen today, but you may not like it_ smile. It was the one he’d worn when he’d pranked asshole professors, brought home a lover with a particularly enquiring mind, or even just concocted some new and ghastly alcoholic abomination. It was also the smile a drunk-off-his-face, grieving, wrecked twenty-one year old had worn when the two of them realised Tony’s user interface was smarter than they’d thought.

A glance round the room made sure they were all paying the correct amount of attention, and then Tony damn Stark opened his big damn mouth.

“Everybody, I’d like to introduce you to my robot love-child.”

There went all chances of seeing the film. Damn thing was a cinematic masterpiece, too.

There was a few seconds of confused silence, and then the robot in question said, “I do not think ‘love child’ is the appropriate term.”

“What? Why not?” Tony scoffed. “I mean, you _were_ made – conceived? Conceived – out of wedlock, so...” He shrugged.

“True, but still I believe there are other, more suitable terms –”

“Like what, c’mon. Me and Banner and, hey, even Thor and Helen if we’re being technical –”

“Thor and Helen Cho gave the means and the power for my creation. I am not sure that that qualifies them as parents –”

“But you’ll give me Banner, right? Me and Banner, out of wedlock, so, love-child –”

“You and Banner are not in love –”

“We’re in something, c’mon, it’s _Bruce_ –”

They were going to go forever if allowed to, Rhodey knew. Tony alone could keep up a monologue argument for several hours. They’d timed it once. Well, _he’d_ timed it. Tony had, obviously, been monologuing.

Pepper beat him to the much needed interruption. “Tony. _Tony_. Look at me.”

Tony and his, uh, child, turned to face her – and the guy must have a name, right? Except nobody’d told Rhodey what the hell it was, it was probably Rob Stark or something stupid, and Tony would insist that Rob is short for Robot, even though they’d all know it’s just that Tony is bitter about all his fictional counterparts in that weird fantasy series all dying off. And god, he knew Tony had a thing about bold colours, but _purple_? Seriously? He was going to ask about it later. It was on his list. He always had a list, a Stupid Shit Stark Did list, full of questions. And this one began and ended with _Why the hell is your sense of style so gaudy?_

“Yes Pep,” Tony said.

“Are they another AI?”

“Yep, me and Banner downloaded –”

Pepper held up a finger. “Yes or no answers, Tony, we’ve a lot to get through. You can explain in more detail in a minute.”

“Sure, sure, reductionist and boring, but sure –”

“Tony.”

“Right, yes-no answers. Gotya.”

Pepper sighed, and Rhodey reflexively reached between the sofas to take her hand. She squeezed it and smiled.

“Second question. That’s a piece of Loki’s sceptre in their...forehead, correct?”

“Yep, correct.”

“Is that cause for _concern_?”

“Uh, well, can I plead ignorance?”

Pepper glared at him, but the corners of her lips were lifting. “Tony Stark, admitting he doesn’t know something? Childbirth has changed you.”

“It’s amazing what the responsibilities of parenthood can do to a guy,” Tony quipped, and then turned to point at the little orange crystal on his robot child’s head. “So it’s from the sceptre sure – Thor calls it the ‘mind stone’ - and, admittedly, we did have some problems the first time around.”

“You mean with the robot bent on global extinction? That time? Do you mean that time?” Rhodey said, because, yeah, it had been explained to him, and it wasn’t _entirely_ Tony’s fault, but it was still close enough to make him really damn angry.

“Yes, alright, so my first child was not the most well behaved, took after his old man in _all_ the worst ways.”

The robot – Rhodey was just going to start thinking of him as Rob, the name was stuck in his head now – Rob cleared his throat quietly, as polite as could be. “You should not blame yourself for Ultron’s failings.”

“C’mon buddy, if I’m going to take any credit for how you turned out I have to take credit for him too. I mean, he even had some of my mannerisms. It was uncanny.”

“And how does this relate to the – what did you call it?” Pepper frowned.

“Mind stone.”

“Mind stone. Explain, please.”

“Longer than a yes-no answer?”

“Tony.”

“I’ll take that as my cue, maestro.”

It was _much_ longer than a yes or no answer, and involved far too much abstract theoretical biological nonsense for Rhodey’s comfort, and aliens, and the equivalent of 3D printing a big metal body – “3D printing, really, Rhodey? How gauche.” – and, apparently, a kind of death.

J.A.R.V.I.S. was gone. Forever.

During Tony’s jargon-filled ramble they’d somehow all ended up with cups of tea. Even Rob, sat there looking graceful and confused as he held a bone china cup and saucer in his vibranuim hands. He didn’t drink, he said, which Rhodey had declared as the sacrilege it was and given him a cup anyway.

“I still can’t believe it.” Pepper said, cradling her own cup close to her lips. “He can’t just be...gone. He’s _J.A.R.V.I.S_. He’s always been there.”

“Don’t you have backups?” Rhodey asked. “You have backups of everything. And then you have backups of your backups.”

There was a crease between Tony’s eyebrows that meant he was trying his best not to cry. Or, no, not crying. Tony didn’t do anything so small as crying. He sobbed.

“Ultron, uh, he kinda, broke, J.A.R.V.I.S. I mean not entirely, J.A.R.V.I.S. was able to sink his code, his memories and so on, into the internet. Saved himself. That’s how we were able to get him back later. But uh, he was, underground for a while. And Ultron used that time very...efficiently. Deleted all the backups, and their backups. In fact a whole bunch of stuff is gone. I think he was, you know, kinda afraid of J.A.R.V.I.S.”

Pepper nodded. “He was right to be, wasn’t he?”

“He was.”

“You should be proud. I know I am.”

They took a pause for some quiet grief. Pepper had been right – J.A.R.V.I.S. _had_ always been there, it seemed. Rhodey had never met Edwin Jarvis, the inspiration behind the AI, but he knew for Tony that the homage had been an act of catharsis and recovery as much as a matter of practicality. J.A.R.V.I.S. had been a caring father, a sarcastic uncle, a genius friend. What the hell were they going to do without him?

“I’ve got other AI’s,” Tony said, voice low and manner subdued, “not the same, obviously, but, you know. Needs must. No offence F.R.I.D.A.Y.” He looked briefly to the ceiling. “I’m going with F.R.I.D.A.Y. at the moment. Say hi, F.R.I.D.A.Y.”

An Irish woman’s voice filled the room. “Hi, F.R.I.D.A.Y.”

“As you can see, she’d got the sarcasm down pat. And I’ve got this guy.” He clapped Rob the robot on the shoulder.

“You haven’t told us his name. Sorry, I’m assuming it’s ‘he’.”

“Yeah Tony, what’s your robot love-child’s name. Is it Rob Stark?” If Rhodey was going to be an asshole, he was going to get to it good and early.

“Fuck you, Rhodey,” Tony said, just as definitely Rob chimed in with “Technically I’m not a robot.”

“Well, alright.” Tony shrugged apathetically. “You’re an android. But ‘android love-child’ just hasn’t got the same ring to it.”

Rob gave him a measured look. “And yet, it is correct. Mostly. I still do not think ‘love-child’ the most –”

“Tangent,” Pepper said, “we are losing ourselves in a tangent.”

Rhodey laughed. “Tony just doesn’t want to admit he named his child Rob Stark.”

Rob coughed gently, as they seem to do everything. “Actually, Tony has not named me anything. I...named myself.”

“And it’s not Rob,” Tony muttered, “you ass.”

“Bet you would of if you could.” Rhodey knew the man too well to be deceived.

“Let my child speak, Rhodey, let him speak.”

Obligingly, Rhodey shut up. He was actually interested, tell the truth, even if the robot wasn’t going to have the name of a fictional dead king. They all turned to look at them, expectant.

“My name is Vision.”

The hell.

Vision – the _hell_ – continued. “And, Ms Potts –”

“Please, call me Pepper.” She sounded like she was on autopilot, and Rhodey wasn’t surprised. _Vision_?

Vision nodded at her. “Pepper, your assumption was, you will be glad to know, correct. Broadly speaking.”

“My assumption?”

“That ‘he’ would be an appropriate pronoun.” Vision broke his delicately still posture and grew animated, perhaps warming to his topic. “While, at only a few days old, I do not yet believe I have a good understanding of all the variable and vagaries involved in human gender, ‘man’ seems a good fit. At least for now. It will certainly suffice while I explore the topic more fully.” He smiled, turning to Tony with a quirk of humour in his face. “An action that has been encouraged most fervently.”

Tony was practically beaming. Which, really, Rhodey couldn’t blame him. Not everyday you got to help your kids get past all the bullshit and trauma you had dealt with: finding out ‘he’ was an appropriate pronoun had been a revelation a lot longer in the making for Tony than it had apparently been for his kid.

“After all,” Vision said, “given my metamorphic nature, it seems eminently likely that I shall find comfort in several categories, rather than just the one.”

“Listen to my tiny, tiny, potentially genderfluid child. Isn’t he a marvel?”

Pepper laughed. “Tony, he’s taller than you.”

“Everyone’s taller than you,” Rhodey said.

Tony was adamant. “Tiny, tiny robot love-child.”

“Only one word in that sentence is correct,” Vision said.

Her tea long gone, Pepper placed her empty cup back in its saucer and on the table, and then loudly clapped her hands. “Boys, boys. Concentrate. Vision,” she turned to look at him, or them, or her, or whichever series of pronouns Vision ended up liking the best – genderfluid robot love-child, wasn’t that just Tony Stark all over – and grinned, “welcome to the family. I just know you’re going to fit right in.”

“We should get cake,” Rhodey said, half pondering out loud, “to celebrate.”

Tony was beaming again. “F.R.I.D.A.Y., some cake. Order it from somewhere posh.”

“Make it purple,” Rhodey added, because he was going to be the delightful but sarky uncle if it killed him. And he still had that list.

Pepper couldn’t stop laughing, so it was up to Tony and Vision to heat up the Thai food again – Rhodey refused to just let him order more – including an explanation on why, no, they couldn’t just eat it cold, yes, having hot Thai food was essential, they weren’t _philistines_.

“Don’t worry kiddo,” Tony Stark told his three day old child, “I’ll teach you. About microwaves and otherwise.”

Rhodey was expecting it when Pepper leaned towards him. “Do you think we can video ‘the talk’ when it comes up?”

Rhodey loved her sometimes. Shoot, all the time. “Sure,” he said, “if F.R.I.D.A.Y. is on our side.”

Subtle and isolated weren’t really features Tony had really installed into his AI’s speakers, so he heard it when F.R.I.D.A.Y. said, “It’ll be comedy gold, James.”

“What is?”

“Nothing Tony,” Pepper said, pulling him down beside her.

Tony shrugged, and handed out the reheated Thai food as Vision slowly sat down beside Rhodey. “Cool,” he said, “so we gonna watch this movie or what.”

“You’re gonna like this,” Rhodey told Vision, “it’s a cinematic masterpiece. You can even sing along.”

He got a smile in return. “That does sound rather enjoyable.”

See. Delightful uncle. Nailing it already.


End file.
